SSM plebiscite
Senate President Scott Ryan (Image: AAP)

Special Minister of State Scott Ryan

Policy options for conducting a postal vote for the same-sex marriage plebiscite went so far as being prepared for cabinet discussion by the Department of Finance for Special Minister of State Scott Ryan, documents obtained by Crikey reveal.

In March, Fairfax reported that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton — an opponent of marriage equality — had been working behind the scenes with fellow opponent and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann for a non-binding, non-compulsory postal vote on the issue in order to get the matter dealt with and uphold the Coalition’s promise to hold a plebiscite without the need to pass legislation it can’t get passed in the Senate.

Legislation is required to make the plebiscite compulsory and impose fines on Australians who do not vote, as per regular elections.

Crikey sought access to documents related to this proposal under freedom of information laws from the Department of Finance, which was believed to be working on the proposal, but several emails from March 21 and 22 this year — around the same time as Fairfax’s report — with documents attached were blocked from release. The department said in its decision that the documents in the emails were “ministerial submissions” for the purpose of briefing Special Minister of State Scott Ryan, and were proposed by Ryan “to be submitted to Cabinet for its consideration”.

“In particular the documents were intended to inform the minister on certain matters which were proposed, at the time, to be the subject of discussion with the Cabinet, the existence of which have not been officially disclosed.”

What the department was prepared to release, however, was one redacted email about the memorandum of understanding between the Commonwealth and the AEC regarding the 2007 postal vote plebiscite for local government amalgamations in Queensland.

Another email that was re-circulated in the department earlier this year but was first sent in 2015 from AEC chief legal officer Paul Pirani to legal academic Professor George Williams outlined what a postal vote would entail. He asked that this not be considered “the official view of the AEC” but said that aside from making the voting compulsory, he saw no barrier to the AEC conducting a postal plebiscite on the matter, in the way it conducts commercial for-fee votes for private businesses. He also said he didn’t see any potential constitutional issues in an agency allocating funds to conduct such a poll without legislation being passed first.

Liberal Senator Dean Smith has said he is drafting a private member’s bill to pass marriage equality without the plebiscite, and he will bring it for debate in the Liberal party room in the next few months and could push for a vote in parliament on the issue as soon as August. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has repeatedly talked down the prospect of the matter coming up for a vote without a plebiscite first happening, but it is possible that some Liberal backbenchers could cross the floor in the House of Representatives to bring the matter on for debate and vote with Labor and crossbench support. A snap postal plebiscite might be one way the government seeks to avoid this scenario and also gets the issue off the agenda before the end of the year.